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Friday Blog Feb 15 – bedside books no.1

The books by my bed are not static. I put them all away about once every three or four months or whenever the stack threatens to topple and kill me in the middle of the night. Currently I think I have two more to go before it gets to that stage. So from bottom to top they are:

– Little Women – a classic from its poor Christmas beginning to its happy family end. Although I had managed to block out the bit where the teenagers decide they do actually want to do chores. It’s a true old friend from an edition older than me leading to the same person giving me two copies of it, one for Christmas and one for my birthday a few weeks later. I suppose I should put one of them in the pile now.

– Dr No – Purchased as a result of Skyfall and I was pleasantly surprised. It (and I surmise the rest) are like watching a James Bond movie but with more personality. They are easy reading John Le Carre novels (in a good way) with action ever present, no brooding, introspective George Smiley to contend with, just vague jealousy of Honey Ryder.

– Two books by Tamora Pierce – Relics from my teenage years with Dragons, Magic, Wild Magic (?!) and girls who want to be knights. In the weeks before Christmas when attention spans are short these help fill the void that Adult books can’t fill.

– My Favourite Place – the Scottish Book Week free book. I was given a copy from my work and dip in and out when I want to feel arty, or inspired. It’s also still in the pile because I can’t figure out where it fits into my bookshelves, already stuffed with series’, prize winners, classics and murder mysteries… Maybe I need a new section.

– Pride and Prejudice – of course. I always feel a sense of accomplishment when reading my old battered copy as it’s a ‘classic’ but it is really just 19th century, very well written, Hello! Magazine. Absolute brilliance that will never tax your brain.

– Revelation by CJ Sansom – The fourth in the Mathew Shardlake series, it sees a lawyer trying to track down a killer fulfilling one of the ‘end of the world’ scenarios from the Book of Revelations. Set in Tudor England, the series features a number of key characters from the time including (at the moment) 3 of the wives. Entertaining, exciting and they help you answer questions on University Challenge, for all fans of Morse, Poirot or Henry VIII.

– Finally – Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall – This was also a Christmas present and is the one I am currently reading. It has taken me nearly a month and I have 200 pages to go. It’s easy to see why it won prizes; the odd writing style, the sheer scale of characters involved and the fact that it took me 250 pages to get into it. For all that though I’m strangely hooked. I keep telling myself to pick any of the other 7 I have in the stack but I guess Thomas Cromwell was the kind of man who draws you in and keeps you guessing

I’ll let you know if it stays in the pile or gets banished to the book shelf – but probably not for a few weeks.

Thanks for sharing that, Loloubelle. More bedside books coming in the next few months. Why not tell us yours? – just email bookgroups@glasgowliffe.org.uk